|
Bushfires rewrite Sikh farmer’s
success story
WSN Network
Adelaide: The story
of Charanamat Singh, Indian taxi driver turned millionaire in
northern Australia, has all the trappings of a rags-to-riches
Bollywood thriller.
However, the gritty
farmer seems to be on “a roller coaster ride”, turning into a pauper
overnight after the recent bushfires in
Victoria
destroyed his 150-acre farm, buildings and equipment worth millions
of dollars.
"Everything was
gutted in front our eyes in the last week of February 2009. Over 200
people died in the area due to fires that left no time for anyone to
flee. Thanks to the Almighty all of us, my wife, children, brother
and father managed to stay alive," Singh told visiting Indian
journalists in Melbourne.
A devout Sikh,
55-year-old Singh, hailing from Phillaur in
Punjab, had left his native land disenchanted with militancy in
Punjab in
1986. He started as a taxi driver in
Melbourne, home to a large Indian expatriate community and , never
looked back since.
Burning with an
urge to become a farmer, like his family back in Phillaur, Singh by
dint of hard work made it big after he managed to save enough to own
a few taxies, and later mobilised bank loans to buy large tracts of
land, about 50 km from Melbourne, where he grew broccoli and beans
and produced bottled water from the water springs on his farm.
11
March 2009
|
Read Also